


Only Other Bengals Fan in Lima

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Category: Glee
Genre: Alive Finn Hudson, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Dates, Fuckurt Trope Bingo, Fuckurt Week, M/M, Personal Ads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4658634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You like some video games, random trivia, and someone to talk sports with, and I can provide all three. Casual, willing to commit, and creative. We could meet up for coffee, a meal, or a drive—just not bowling.” </p><p>“Bored student teacher looking for another adult to talk to. We can stay in and marathon Netflix originals or go out for drinks or dinner, maybe even drive down to catch a Bengals game... if you’re the only other Bengals fan in Lima! We can just have fun, I can be serious as you want to be.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Other Bengals Fan in Lima

**Author's Note:**

> Fuckurt Trope Bingo Square: Personal Ad

Puck runs spellcheck a third time before he copies the personal ad he wrote for himself into the designated box. He reads over it a final time, making sure it comes across the way he wants. There’s no guarantee of how anyone might read it, but he’s doing his best with it. 

“You like some video games, random trivia, and someone to talk sports with, and I can provide all three,” Puck reads aloud quietly to himself. “Casual, willing to commit, and creative.” He pauses, still wishing he could get away with being ‘captivating’ in his ad. “We could meet up for coffee, a meal, or a drive—just not bowling.” 

Puck laughs a little. He never has liked bowling, which is too bad given how many bowling alleys there are in the midwest, even in a town Lima’s size. Even the tiny University of Lima student center has bowling lanes, something Puck thinks is a waste of space and student fees. He hits the ‘Post’ button, wondering if he should go back and make his dislike of bowling more explicit on the rest of his profile, but he decides that a better use of his time is probably perusing the other Lima-area personal ads. 

There are a few that catch his eyes, and he sends a message to two of them, an invitation to look at his own ad and profile and give him a poke back if they’re interested. He can’t tell for sure if they’re guys or girls, which doesn’t matter too much to him in the end, but he thinks they’re probably girls. He’s heard more postings tend to be girls, anyway. He’ll wait between twenty-four and thirty-six hours, and then check back. Puck doesn’t want to look desperate, but he doesn’t want to let anything good slip away, either. 

 

Holy shit, personal ads are the _lamest_ place to look for a date, but if Finn doesn’t make himself get out there and start dating again, preferably outside the pool of his fellow education majors, he’s going to end up one of those pathetic teachers with the sweater vests by the time he’s thirty. Kurt’s advice of “just go to a club” might be great if Finn lived in New York City, too, but Lima hasn’t suddenly opened a bunch of nightclubs in the three years since they graduated and Kurt left the state. 

Finn _had_ tried clubs—school clubs, like the Environmental Club and the University of Lima Young Democrats—but those were all so project-oriented that they didn’t really leave much time for socializing. He’d considered rushing at one point, but the time a dude passed out at a Mu Phi Mu party and knocked an entire punch bowl of rum punch onto Finn’s lap was kind of enough to take that idea off the table. Matt even tried to set Finn up with his girlfriend’s sister, but that was the semester Finn was taking a full load, working twenty hours at Burt’s shop, _and_ was doing his first round of student teaching. He fell asleep halfway through a movie. When he woke up, she was already gone. 

With only one semester left, and only one other class on top of his student teaching, Finn feels ready for a real relationship, something he hasn’t had since he and Rachel broke up the summer between high school and college. When his roomie had suggested the personals, Finn had initially laughed, but three months and exactly no dates later, Finn is finally willing to give it a shot. Lame is better than lonely. 

“Bored student teacher looking for another adult to talk to. We can stay in and marathon Netflix originals or go out for drinks or dinner, maybe even drive down to catch a Bengals game... if you’re the only other Bengals fan in Lima! We can just have fun, I can be serious as you want to be.”

Finn submits the ad, then puts his head down on his desk next to his laptop. This is probably a terrible, _terrible_ idea, but if he meets a nice girl as a result, maybe he can get over the embarrassment. His head is still on the desk fifteen minutes later when his computer dings to notify him that he has a new message on the personals site. The message is just a short “I might just be the only other Bengals fan in Lima,” and then a link directing Finn back to that user’s profile and their ad. 

He likes what he sees, so he sends his own short message. “Want to meet up sometime soon?”

 

A few messages back and forth, and Puck has a date for dinner Friday night at the new place that just opened where Vivace used to be, which hadn’t really lasted that long. He tells his date that he’ll be the one wearing zebra-print shoes, which is true. Puck’s still not sure how he lucked out and found zebra-print boots in his size at the thrift store, but they’re a great thing to make sure he’s identifiable. His date’s going to be in a Bengals shirt, which means it’s probably too bad Puck can’t find some tiger-print boots before Friday, but zebra’ll have to do. 

Puck gets there a little early, mainly so he can claim one of the few patio tables, then orders two beers while he waits. Maybe his date’s a girl, maybe a guy, but either way, they’re going to have problems if one of the two of them hates the taste of beer. After about five minutes, a tall guy who looks vaguely familiar walks into the restaurant and starts looking around, first generically and then at the floor, and when he looks at Puck’s shoes, Puck can almost feel the guy’s confusion. 

Puck decides that it might not help the guy look any less confused, but he’ll lift his leg up a little just to clarify that his are the zebra-print shoes the guy is looking for, and while it’s in the air, he shakes it a little. The guy does, in fact, look _more_ confused, but he does approach the table.

“Uh. Hi?” the guys says, blushing enough that Puck compares the color to his Bengals shirt, and Puck grins a little. “I think maybe we got our wires crossed?”

“Not unless you actually love bowling and you’re here to try to make me join a bowling league?” Puck says.

The guy shakes his head, and his blush darkens a little more, but he pulls out the chair across from Puck and sits down. “So, uh. Hey, I guess?” He squints at Puck a little. “Wait. I know you.”

“You do look familiar,” Puck admits, offering his hand. “Noah.” 

“Finn,” the guy says as he takes Puck’s hand and shakes it. 

“Finn. Finn…” Puck thinks, squinting at the guy in front of him. “Middle school? Finn H-something?” 

“Yeah!” Finn says, suddenly looking thrilled. “I _do_ know you! Puckerman. Noah Puckerman, Shawnee Youth Football!”

“Hey, yeah!” Puck says. “Quarterback, right?” 

“Right! You were the running back.”

“Yeah, good memory. You play in high school?” Puck asks. 

Finn nods. “Yeah, McKinley. You?”

“Shawnee, tenth and twelfth. Missed eleventh grade ‘cause I tore my ankle up during two-a-days. Same reason I didn’t get recruited,” Puck says. “Or at least that’s what I like to tell myself.” 

“Yeah, I tell myself it’s ‘cause we lost. Like, a _lot_ ,” Finn says, laughing a little. 

“But hey, it worked out? Student teaching?” 

Finn nods again. “Yeah. Middle school social studies, which obviously tells you how good my O-line was. Clearly I had a lot of head trauma, to want to do that.”

Puck laughs and decides to see if Finn will blush again. “Nah, it just tells me you’re a bit of a masochist.” 

“Maybe,” Finn says, and the blush does return. 

“I hope you like beer,” Puck says, laughing again. “I thought I’d wave that server down and get a pitcher.” 

 

Finn wakes up just as the sun is rising, like he does most mornings, and immediately remembers that he’s not in his dorm. Puck—because that’s what Finn remembered partway into their conversation that he used to go by—is asleep next to Finn, one arm over his head and the other across Finn’s chest. While Finn can’t exactly say he doesn’t know how he ended up here, because reminiscing about middle school football had turned into talking had turned into making out in the parking lot, but he certainly hadn’t expected to end up here. He had genuinely gone to the bar thinking he was meeting a woman. He definitely hadn’t planned on hooking up with dude, no matter how many times his mom has said “there’s a first time for everything!”

And yeah, once they’d finished the first pitcher, Finn started thinking about the little crush he’d had on Puck all through middle school ball. It’s just that when he started high school and got a crush on the head cheerleader instead, he’d chalked up his feelings for Puck as being some kind of weird overly enthusiastic bro thing, or maybe some kind of phase. Either way, he hadn’t really sought out any guys since then. 

In fact, Finn had probably come across to Puck as horribly inexperienced, and Puck probably had a terrible time, and the best thing Finn can do for both of them right now is to quietly sneak out and let them both pretend this didn’t happen. Finn had enjoyed, like _really_ enjoyed it, but he’s just not up for seeing a look of disappointment on Puck’s face or hearing any awkward excuses about how Puck had a great time and all, but doesn’t think they should get together again. 

Mind made up, Finn carefully slides out from under Puck’s arm, then stands up, scanning the room for his clothes. About five seconds later, Puck’s hand grabs Finn’s wrist. “It’s Saturday,” Puck says, sounding confused. 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. “I just— I figured it would be easier, you know? You’d probably want me gone, and this way, you don’t have to be the one to say something.”

“Huh?” 

“So you didn’t think you were hurting my feelings or anything,” Finn explains. 

“Did I do something wrong?” Puck asks, sounding even more confused, and he lets go of Finn’s wrist as he sits up. 

“No. No, you were great! You were awesome,” Finn says. “It’s just, it’s been kind of a while for me in general, and I hadn’t ever been with a guy before, so I know it was probably ter—”

“Waiiit, what?” Puck says. He shakes his head. “You hadn’t?” 

Finn smiles wryly and shakes his head a little. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be nice about it. I’ll go. I really did have a great time.”

“Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be sneaking out before… what time is it even?” Puck asks. “Seven?” 

“I always get up early,” Finn says. “I was just thinking how awkward it would be if it were me who had to be like, sorry, dude, but you kinda suck in bed, so can you go now? So I was going.” He picks up his underwear. “‘Cause I’m the one who sucked in this scenario, if, you know. If that wasn’t clear.”

“Did you think it was funny or something?” Puck asks. “Haha, you’ll stay and have dinner and try out guys?” 

“What? No!” Finn says. 

“Then what the hell did I do wrong?” Puck says, looking much less confused and somewhat angry. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong!” Finn says. When he moves his arm, he realizes he’s still holding his underwear in one hand, so he continues talking as he awkwardly puts them on. “I had a great time, like a way better time than I’ve had with anybody in a long time, and the sex was just, it was like. Like, wow. Okay? But I’m not wow. You’re not wowed, I mean. Like, _by_ me. Since I didn’t know what I was doing.” Now that Finn’s underwear is on, he looks down at the floor again for his jeans. “And I didn’t want to stick around so you could tell me how very obviously I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You should probably change your profile,” Puck says snottily. “Maybe something about one-night stands or commitment issues.” 

“Hey! That’s not fair!” Finn says. He finally finds his jeans and starts pulling them on as quickly as he can. 

“Oh yeah? Who’s the one who was sneaking out and wasn’t even going to wake me up?” Puck says. “Or you could just put ‘scared of dudes’.” 

“Well, shit, sorry,” Finn says, feeling kind of mad himself as he grabs his Bengals shirt. “Not all of us have _sooooo_ much experience with dudes.”

“I didn’t ask you to!” 

“No, you just want me to, like, _magically_ be awesome at it!” Finn says. 

“I thought it was pretty great until I woke up!” Puck says as he scowls at Finn. 

“Oh,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Puck says, still glaring. 

“So… I didn’t suck?” Finn asks, then feels his face get hot. “I mean, yeah, I did, like in a literal way, but… I wasn’t terrible?”

Puck snorts once. “You weren’t terrible. I really didn’t figure you as someone that insecure.” 

Finn sighs and lets his shoulders drop. “Like I said, it’s been a long time, and first time with a guy. I thought that was all really obvious.”

“I’m not a complete asshole,” Puck says, shaking his head. “If I’d thought it was your first time with a guy, I would have, you know. Checked in a little more about everything.” 

“I didn’t want to make it weird by telling you.”

“So you thought, hey, I’ll make it really weird by disappearing?” Puck says. “Middle school social studies doesn’t include logical reasoning, does it?” 

Finn sighs again. “I thought you’d be relieved that I was gone and you didn’t have to ask me to go.”

“I know we were a little tipsy last night, but surely you remember I specifically said you could stay?” Puck asks, shaking his head a little. 

“I thought you were being nice because it was so late,” Finn says.

“Oh my god,” Puck says. “Really?” Finn nods. “I hate to ruin your impression of me then, but I’m not actually that nice.” 

“But I remember you as being nice,” Finn says. “In middle school.”

“Me?” Puck says. “Are you sure you didn’t know some other kid with a mohawk who played running back or something? Or did you cross over from a different universe recently?” 

Finn shrugs. “I remember you as nice. I also think I maybe had a crush on you.” He shrugs again. “Maybe a bigger crush than I realized?”

“I made a promise to myself three years ago I wasn’t going back to the mohawk, so I hope that’s not a dealbreaker?” 

Finn shakes his head. “No. Your hair looks really good like it is now.”

“Yeah? Really good?” Puck says, looking like he’s trying not to grin. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “It’s, you know. It’s good. It looks really good.”

“Maybe we should like… pretend to wake up. Like we didn’t already wake up,” Puck says. 

Finn drops his shirt. “Really?”

“Don’t you think that’d probably be easiest?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says, letting himself grin. “Yeah, I think it would.”

“C’mon,” Puck says, lying back down and scooting to the side. Finn quickly shucks off his jeans and underwear before lying down next to Puck.

“Do I need to close my eyes for it to count?” Finn asks. 

“Yeah, probably,” Puck says, and he closes his eyes. “Don’t tell me if I was snoring.” 

Finn closes his eyes, too. “Wouldn’t ever do such a thing.”

“‘Night, Finn,” Puck says, sounding happy for the first time since he woke up. 

“‘Night, Puck.”


End file.
